Maritime College is the oldest institution of its kind in the United States. Due in part to the
Civil War, there was a decline in the American
maritime industry and a growing concern about the professionalism of its officers. As a result, the New York Chamber of Commerce and maritime interests of the port of New York lobbied the state legislature to create a professional nautical school for the city. This was done in 1873, but the school lacked a ship. The chamber then teamed up with the noted naval education reformer and modernizer,
Stephen B. Luce. Luce led the effort, and through his efforts an act was passed by Congress in 1874 that enabled individual states to request from the Navy retired or obsolete vessels to train seamen. The state of New York then appealed to the Navy for a training vessel. On December 14, 1874, the
USS ''St. Mary's'' arrived in New York harbor and became the first home of the
New York Nautical School, the college's initial name. Originally administered by the
Board of Education of the City of New York, it was conducted as a grammar school that taught common school subjects (along with nautical classes) during the winter term, and then held practical cruises during the summer term. In time, the school began to teach more advanced professional subjects. During this early period, the school was typically run on an annual appropriation of $20,000 to $30,000 with the school often facing closure because the cost per pupil was much higher than in a regular public school, mainly due to the overhead of ship maintenance and student board. By 1907, the ''St. Mary's
was replaced by the gunboat Newport'', a sail-steam hybrid. In 1913, New York City threatened to close the school due to its costs. However, the state of New York took over its management and renamed it the
New York State Nautical School. Despite being a state institution, the school was almost closed in 1916, again for budgetary reasons, but efforts from the maritime industry and the school's alumni kept it alive. After this time, the American merchant marine grew and subsequently a greater demand for trained American merchant marine brought growth to the school. During this period, the school was administered by a board of governors in addition to the superintendent. In 1921, the school, which had for long moved from berth to berth, found itself at Bedloe's Island (now
Liberty Island) in New York Harbor. There they were allowed to use the army facilities. Over time, conditions on the island were deemed inadequate to teach modern merchant mariners. docked at SUNY Maritime. Throgs Neck Bridge is in the background. With the growing demand, a push was made by then superintendent
James Harvey Tomb beginning in 1927 to acquire a larger ship and a land-based institution. The ship came in the form of the
Procyon, which was renamed the
Empire State. This ship effectively doubled the size of the school. The school, renamed the
New York State Merchant Marine Academy in 1929, finally became land-based in 1938 at the Maritime College's present Throggs Neck campus in Fort Schuyler. One of
Franklin D. Roosevelt's last acts as Governor of New York State was to sign the act turning
Fort Schuyler and the Throggs Neck peninsula over to the school for use as a shore-based facility of higher education. Work restoring Fort Schuyler for the academy's use was done at first by the Temporary Emergency Relief Administration (TERA) in 1934 followed by the
Works Progress Administration in 1935. The fort was restored, allowing the school to operate there by 1938. A third name change took place in 1941, when the school became the
New York State Maritime Academy. In 1946, degree conferring status was granted and the academy became a college. Two years later, the college was one of the original institutions incorporated into the
State University of New York system. In 1949, just one year later, the newly minted university took on its current name, the State University of New York Maritime College. == Academics ==